E 128 

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. J5 D9 

Lopy 1 



Points in the First Chapter of 
New York Jewish History. 



ALBION MOERIS DYER, 

Member of the New York Historical Society. 



From the Publications of the American Jewish Historical 
Society, No. 3, 1895. 



.3 5ll«? 



' ■ ; ; t 

J'.hOP 
Person) 



POINTS IN THE FIRST CHAPTER OF NEW 
YORK JEWISH HISTORY. 

By Albion Morkis Dyee, 

w 
Member of the New York Historical Society. 

It is not the purpose of this brief paper to present anew 
the whole story of the beginnings of the Jewish people from 
the day of their first entrance into the commercial and reli- 
gious life of the American metropolis. The time is not yet 
ripe for such a work, and the task is beyond the ability and 
inclination of the present writer. Too much still remains 
to be done in the way of original research to justify the 
reduction of the known facts to completed form. The gaps 
between events are too wide and too frequent. Too much 
must be left to conjecture. Perhaps the future still has its 
1^ revelations in store, of events connected with the social, com- 

mercial and ecclesiastical conditions in the city of New York 
during the first century of its settlement, and it will be well 
)s..^,^^^ to await these revelations before calling the First Chapter 

,.v of American Jewish History finished. The present purpose 

'^ is merely to bring forward three isolated facts that have 

1^ come under the writer's observation in the course of pro- 

iu longed and diligent search among the records and documents 

for material relating to the early churches of New York. 
These facts seem to be important, as they correct some 
generally accepted statements respecting the beginnings of 
Jewish life and Jewish institutions in New York. They are 
also interesting, as they bear upon the story of the develop- 
ment of the ecclesiastical life of the Dutch city of New 
Amsterdam and the English city that sprang therefrom. It 
will be attempted only to point out the facts, giving nothing 
more in the way of historical setting than is deemed necessary 
to make clear their relations to other events. 



42 American Jewish Historical Society. 

Antiquarians of the future centuries searching for the sites 
and circumstances of the earliest churches of New York are 
bound to be confused by the contemporary writings which 
have been published in books and public prints on this sub- 
ject. No two statements agree as to the exact dates and 
locations of the first Dutch Calvinist church, the first 
Lutheran church, the first Quaker meeting-house and the 
first Jewish synagogue. The first church edifice occupied by 
the Dutch, built in 1626, was the scene two years later of 
an authorized, orderly, stated, ceremonious organization of 
certain members of a body of Reformed worshippers into a 
formal and separate church-estate, conducted by a qualified 
and accredited delegate, and as such may well rank as the 
first church of the Reformed Protestant faith and order 
planted on North American soil. Religious life began of 
course some years earlier at Jamestown, at New Amsterdam 
and at New Plymouth, but there seems to have been no 
separation of worshippers from the congregation at either 
place into a distinct church-estate until after this church on 
Manhattan Island was built. The first synagogue on Man- 
hattan Island was the seat of the earliest Jewish congregation 
on North American soil. The present representatives of 
these two bodies are carrying on still in many directions 
their works of usefulness in New York. Both have con- 
served their wealth and energies to a remarkable degree. 
One is the mother of a great denomination of Christians, the 
other stands as the first in wealth and influence of Jewish 
congregations in America. But neither can tell aught of her 
birthplace, neither can trace the first years of her infancy. 
There is hope, of course there is always hope, that something 
will turn up, some document will come to light that will make 
clear these uncertain years. It may yet appear where in the 
city of New York stood the grist-mill of 1626 in which the 
first Protestant church of America w4s organized, and where 
stood the seat, fifty years later, of the first Jewish congrega- 
tion of America. It is probable, when the truth is known. 



J. 

/2 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyer. 43 



that these two events will be found to be associated with one 
/ and the same spot. 

As has been written time and again, the first Jews to appear 
at New Amsterdam came in the year 1654. The earliest 
known public record of their presence there is the entry of 
the hearing before the Dutch Governor and Council, of a 
suit for the recovery of passage money for a company of Bra- 
zilian refugees brought by the master of the bark St. Cata- 
rina, who carried them from St. Antonio in September of 
that year. The full story of the misfortunes of these penni- 
less Jews in the strange and unfriendly city has been well 
worked out by ready writers. But these were not the first 
arrivals at New Amsterdam. Jews were there before them. 
There were rich Jews in the city, merchants and traders, 
working under quasi-agreements with the directors of the 
West India Company, by which they were to exercise their 
commercial rights without molestation from the local mer- 
chants and traders. They came from Holland in the sum- 
mer of 1654, and they were followed by other Holland Jews 
on the same errand. The Dutch domine, the Keverend 
Johannus Megapolensis, in a letter written at New Amsterdam, 
dated March 18, 1655, and now in the archives of the General 
Synod of the Reformed Church in America, says : " Jews 
came from Holland last summer to trade, later a few came 
upon the same ship with Domine Polheymius.* They were 
poor and healthy, and it would have been seemly that they 
should have been supported by their own people, but they 
have been at our charge, so that we — the church — have had 
to spend several hundred guilders for their support. They 
came several times to my house weeping and bemoaning their 
misery, and when I directed them to the Jewish merchants, 
they said that these would not lend them a few stivers. 
Some more have come from Holland this spring, reporting 

*Polyhemius came from Ilamarca, Brazil, in 1654, where he had 
served as minister. See O'Callegan's History of New Netherland, 
vol. II, p. 272. 



44 American Jewish Historical Society. 

that still more of this lot would follow and then build here a 
synagogue. This causes among the congregation here a great 
deal of grumbling and murmuring. As these people have no 
other god but the unrighteous mammon, and no other aim than 
to get possession of Christian property and to ruin all other 
merchants by drawing all trade towards themselves, there- 
fore we request your Reverences [the Classis of Amsterdam] 
to obtain an order from the Lords Directors [of the West 
India Company] that these godless rascals, who are of no 
benefit to the country, but look at everything for their profit, 
may be sent away from here."* From this letter it appears 
that the penniless Jews who came from South America in 
September, and who are supposed to have been the first 
comers of the race, found other Jews here before them. 
These earlier Jews were well-to-do merchants from Holland. 
They were the first of a company of Holland Jews who were 
to follow and then build a synagogue. It could not have 
been the penniless refugees, who required alms from the 
Calvinist church to the extent of several hundred guilders, 
whom the Domine feared were to build a synagogue. 

The failure of these eiforts to suppress the activity of the 
Jewish merchants is well known. The directors of the 
West India Company resisted the pleadings of the New 
Amsterdam Domine, of the New Netherland Governor and 
of the Classis of Amsterdam. An order of toleration of the 
Jews came, bearing date April 26, 1655, from the direc- 
tors of the company. Although this order referred entirely 
to commercial matters, it deserves a place in the annals of 
the city, with the succeeding order from the same source 
directing the toleration of the Lutheran inhabitants in the 
exercise of their faith. Possibly the presence of the Jews in 
the city at the time of the Lutheran schism had something to 

*This and other references to the Amsterdam Correspondence 
were furnished by Mr. B. Fernow, late New York State Archivist, 
translator of the letters for use in the preparation of a history of 
New York churches. — A. M. D. 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyer. 45 

do with the persistence of the Dutch domines and of the Gov- 
ernor in their efforts to keep out all other religions than the 
Reformed. The fear of the establishment of a synagogue 
may have been as dreadful to these zealous Calvinists as the 
fear that the Lutherans would set up an Augsburg church in 
a city consecrated to the church of Holland. It is to the 
glory of the West India Company directors that they with- 
stood the pressure of the intolerant in that age of intolerance. 
Whatever their motives may have been, it is to their credit 
that they adopted the wise and enlightened policy which gave 
to the Jews the right to live, and to the Lutherans the right 
to worship in the New World. In this connection it is inter- 
esting to note that the first Lutheran church edifice, built in 
1671, "outside the city gate because ground was cheap there" 
(near the intersection of Broadway and Pine street), was paid 
for by money borrowed from the Jews. Christian Peters, 
one of the Lutheran congregation, became surety to Asser 
Levy for the loan.* 

No doubt the Jewish merchants set up some formal worship 
immediately after their arrival at New Amsterdam. What- 
ever this was, it must have been confined to their own house- 
holds, as a public assembly would not have been tolerated. 
Strictly as Governor Stuy vesant regarded his oath of office to 
suffer no other religion in the province than the true Reformed 
doctrine, he made no objection to the quiet and peaceable 
pursuit of any religion by the individual or the family. His 
proclamation against the Lutheran conventicles, which came 
afterward, February 1, 1656/7, guaranteed to the individual 
and to the family this right of private worship. Even the 
Quakers, after the first spasm of persecution, into which the 
Governor was driven by his friend Captain Thomas Willett 
of Plymouth, were allowed to go their way in peace in the 
city and through the province. Under this semi-toleration 
some of the more important forms of Jewish worship were 

*A. Grtibner, Geschichte der Luih. Kirche, St. Louis, 1891, vol. I, 
p. 62. 



46 Amer'ican Jewish Historical Society. 

instituted. But the plan to build a synagogue, of which the 
Megapolensis letter gave warning in 1655, was not realized 
under the Dutch regimen. A letter written September 25, 
1655, outlining to the Governor the political and social status 
of the Jews in New Netherland as determined by the West 
India Company directors, contains positive orders on that 
point. "This does not include," says the letter, "the right 
of exercising their religious service in a synagogue or 
assembly; as long as no such request is made [by the Jews 
themselves] the consideration of this question is premature ; 
when it is brought up, you better refer it to us." * 

But it was not long after the Dutch capitulation and the 
establishment of the indulgent rule of the English that the 
public worship of the Jews began to be tolerated. Green- 
leaf, in his history of the New York churches,t gives the 
year of the origin ot the first congregation as 1706. This 
statement he bases on references in the first minutes of the 
congregation of Sheareth Isreal, " at which time," says he, " if 
not before, it is altogether probable that a congregation 
existed in an orderly manner." On this evidence Greenleaf 
places the Jews fifth in the list of formally established 
religious institutions in the city, the order being (Colle- 
giate) Reformed Protestant Dutch, Evangelical Lutheran, 
Trinity Protestant Episcopal, Society of Friends, Jews. 
But a much earlier date can now be determined as the year 
of Jewish religious organization, and Greenleaf's order of 
establishment must be revised. In the year 1682 a congre- 
gation of Jews existed in an orderly manner in New Amster- 
dam. This date is attested, as will appear, by the highest 
authority, but there is reason to believe that public services 
can be traced to a date even earlier than that, to the adminis- 
tration of Governor Colve. It is probable that the Jews had 
a public meeting-place in 1673, if nothing more than a 

*New York Colonial MSS., Albany, vol. XII, p. 36. Letter to 
Gov. Stuyvesant from Directors W. I. Co., Holland, 
f P. 120. 



Points in New York Jeioish History — Dyer. 47 

dwelling-house where public assemblages were held. But 
for the present it is sujfficient to fix the date 1682, for this 
places the Jews ahead of Trinity, and fourth, if not third, in 
the order of priority among the city churches. Domine 
Henricus Selyns, writing to his ecclesiastical superiors, the 
Classis of Amsterdam, soon after his return to the province, 
in October, 1682, says : " There is here [at New Amsterdam] 
a Lutheran church and a preacher. . . . Besides these, the 
Jews, Quakers and Labadists have their separate meetings. 
Quakers most, Jews less, and Labadists least, are in the 
habit of coming to my Sunday sermons, both morning and 
evening, but after that they meet among themselves."* 
■iVhether it was a regular custom for the Jews to attend the 
public service in the chapel in the fort, or whether they 
went there drawn by the great popularity of Domine Selyns, 
cannot be said. Selyns is the man who gathered up the 
scattered records of the Dutch church and reduced them to 
shape and order. To him the Collegiate Reformed Protes- 
tant Dutch Church Consistory of the city of New York is 
indebted for most of its knowledge of local church affairs 
prior to 1699. His testimony of the existence of a Jewish 
" separate meeting " and of the custom of the Jews attend- 
ing his own services cannot be disputed. 

There are other proofs of the existence of a congregation 
and a synagogue many years before the date given by Green- 
leaf. Chaplain John Miller's map of New York in 1695 
shows the location of a Jews' synagogue. There is, more- 
over, on record in the New York County Register's office a 
deed bearing date October, 1700, which mentions a house 
commonly known as the Jews' Synagogue. 

But what was the location of this building commonly 
known as the Jews' Synagogue? Chaplain Miller's map 

* Letter in possession of the General Synod, Reformed Church in 
America. Of course the English chaplain began to hold service in 
the chapel in the fort in 1664, but Trinity Protestant Episcopal 
church does not claim this as its origin. 



48 American Jewish Historical Society. 

places it on the south side of Beaver street, a short distance 
east of the Whitehall. This is the site generally accepted as 
the first seat of Jewish worship by writers who came after 
the discovery of the Miller map. But to them the existence 
of the record of the deed of October, 1700, seems to have 
been unknown. If the location as given by Chaplain Miller 
is correct, the synagogue site is now covered by the Beaver 
street entrance to the New York Produce Exchange, property 
both then and now second to none in value on Manhattan 
Island. The deed of 1700 names a site far to the east of the 
Produce Exchange, across Broad street, in the old marsh 
land bordering the Herre Graft, a neighborhood of much 
lower values. It is possible that both these locations are 
correct, as the dates of the Miller map and the deed are five 
years apart, and the synagogue might have been in 1695 in 
Beaver street near the Bowling Green, and then moved across 
Broad street to the new section of the city. But it seems to 
be worth the contention that the Miller map is a mistake 
and that the synagogue as first planted was in the Dock 
ward beyond the Tide-ditch. Chaplain Miller's map, it 
will be remembered, was made up from memory after 
the maker had suffered capture and imprisonment at the 
hands of the French. It is not at all unlikely that 
such a map, otherwise accurate, should have a spot or a 
letter, marking a site of a public building, misplaced. But it 
is unlikely that at that early time the Jews could have 
obtained permission to establish their synagogue on so 
important a street. It stands, as marked on Miller's map, 
within a hundred feet of the parade ground before the fort. 
New street leading up to the Cingle gate at Wall street began 
in Beaver street directly opposite. Broad street and the 
Marketvelt (Whitehall), the two important thoroughfares of 
the city, passed on either side. But why should the synagogue 
move from Beaver street after the date of the Miller map ? 
Why should the Jews surrender this advantageous situation, 
if they held it in 1695, to take up with a hired house, across 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyei'. 49 

the swamp, in a meaner part of the city ? It is reasonable to 
say that Chaplain Miller, in fixing the site of the synagogue, 
suffered a lapsus memorice, or perhaps a lapsus calami, 
inadvertently placing it in Beaver street west of Broad street 
when it should have been placed east of Broad street in 
Princess (afterwards Beaver) street. 

The record of the deed referred to as indicating the location 
of this early synagogue is for the conveyance by Jacob 
" Melyen " of Boston, to Katherine Kerf byl, widow, " a 
house and lot on the north side of the street, bounded south 
by Mill street [76.8 feet], west [110.6 ft.], and north [78 ft.], 
by the house and ground of David Provost, Esq., and 
Lawrence Van Hook, east [97.4 ft.] by the house and ground 
of John Harpending, now commonly known by the name of 
the Jews' Synagogue." This conveyance bears date of 
October 30, 1700.* The mention of the synagogue as a 
landmark in a deed of conveyance of property is proof that 
the situation of the Harpording house and its use by the 
Jews as a synagogue were matters of common knowledge at 
that time. " Mill street " was the name applied by the 
English to a lane laid out by the Dutch in the Dock ward of 
the city. It was suggested by a horse-power grist-mill 
which stood at its eastern extremity. It is mentioned in 
deeds after the year 1664 as "Mill street, formerly Sleyck 
Strege." This name, signifying Muddy Lane, by which name 
it was known to the Dutch, betrays its history. In the 
original allotments of land made by the West India Company 
no provision was made for such a street. Princess street 
ran easterly from Broad street toward King street (now 
William street) in line with Beaver street. It was narrow 
and crooked, having a heavy jog in its south line about half 
way between Broad street and Hanover Square. Beaver 
street, in striking contrast, was broad and straight, affording 
a fine thoroughfare between Broad street and the Battery. 
The next street south of Princess street was Duke (now 

* See Liber (Conveyances) 23, p. 230, New York Hall of Records. 



50 American Jewish Historical Society. 

Stone) street. It circled to the north and east, entering King 
street at Hanover Square. There was no street between 
these two streets where South William street now runs until 
after 1650. The west front on Broad street between Princess 
and Duke streets was in private hands. Soon a wagon-track 
began to appear across the property of Adrien Vincent, 
turning out of Broad street to the east midway between 
Princess and Duke streets, and leading up to a mill which 
stood in the rear of a Princess street lot. This wagon-track 
soon became a well-beaten road used by the Manhattan 
farmers in carrying their grist to mill. In time it reached 
the dignity of "Sleyck Strege" or Dirty lane. But it had 
no outlet. Wagons on reaching the mill were turned in 
their tracks and brought out again at Broad street where 
they had entered. This blind alley arrangement served for a 
time, but increasing traffic at the mill soon caused the purchase 
of a lot on Stone street, running through to the lane, which 
was laid out as a part of Mill street. This remnant of the 
ancient Sleyck Strege is still to be seen unchanged in any of 
its lines, running between South William and Stone streets in 
the rear of buildings fronting on Hanover Square.* Mill 
street, with its angular outlet into Stone street, remained 
unchanged in name or form until after the great conflagration 
which swept over that part of the city of New York in the 
year 1835; then it was widened and extended under the 
name it now bears. South William street. The house of 
John Harpording, described in the deed as the Jews' Syna- 
gogue, before the beginning of the eighteenth century, stood 
on the northern side of this narrow road or lane or street. 

Whether the mill that gave the lane its name was built 
there before or after the year of English rule, 1664, has not 
been learned. No reference to a mill in that locality has been 
found in the records of grants and deeds of an earlier date 

.< ^n ^'^ ^^^^^ connecting lane is marked on the Miller map as 
Ellert's alley." It has been known as Jews Lane, and is now 
called Mill Lane. 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyer. 51 

than 1667. At that time Gouvert Lookermans sold to Jacques 
Couseau a lot on the north side of Mill street on which there 
was a horse-mill.* Lookermans purchased this lot three 
years before from the Deaconry of the Dutch Church, but 
the record of this deed does not mention the horse-mill. In 
a list of real estate taxed in the year 1677 the holdings on 
Mill street appear. f The " mill-house," according to this 
list, is charged to Corston Johnston. The same list shows 
among owners of property in that block, John Harpording, 
a vacant lot, and Jacob " Molyno," a house and lot and a 
vacant lot. The relative positions of the horse-mill and the 
Harpording and Melyen lots are not to be determined from 
the tax list. But the deed of October 30, 1700, refers to 
the same properties, and from this deed it appears that 
Harpording's lot was on the north side of Mill street and 
that the Melyen lot joined it on the west. The Harpording 
lot was 28 feet front, and Melyen's lot it will be remembered 
was 76.8 feet. 

Where then was situated the house of Jacob Melyen and 
the house of John Harpording, his next-door neighbor, which 
in the closing years of the seventeenth century was known 
to all in the city of New York as the Jews' Synagogue ? 
There are traditions in certain families with whicli the 
writer has been made acquainted, that, joined with the facts 
given in the tax-list and the deed, give the solution of this 
interesting problem. These traditions are that " before the 
erection of a regular synagogue, prayers were said in a frame 
building in Mill street, in the first ward, about one hundred 
feet east of the lot on which the first synagogue was built in 
5489—1729." The site of the " first synagogue built in the 
year 1729" is perfectly well known. It was purchased from 
Cornelius Clopper, December 19, 1728, being a lot 40 feet 
front on the north side of Mill street, 40 feet in the rear, 

* Liber (Conv.) B, p. 136. Hall of Records. 

■f-MSS. Minutes, New York Common Council, vol. I, p. 101, New 
York City Hall. 



52 American Jewish Historical Society. 

110 feet in length on its western side, adjoining the property 
of James Alexander, and 93 feet in length on its eastern 
side.* Its southwestern corner was about 175 feet from the 
corner of Broad street. Subsequent purchases extended this 
lot to the east (46 feet) to the line of the ancient warehouse 
of Peter Goelet, Esq. (Nos. 14 and 16 South William St.), 
and to the north to the old line of Princess street in the 
middle of the present Beaver street. 

The building first erected on the Cornelius Clopper lot 
was in size 36x58 feet.f According to traditions in Jewish 
families it stood close to the Mill street line of the lot, 
leaving a narrow passage on the western side of the lot to 
afford access to the entrance door, which was toward Broad 
street. If the distance, 100 feet, of the traditional frame 
building where prayers were said before the synagogue was 
built, is correctly given, the John Harpording house must 
have been about 300 feet east of the Broad street corner of 
Mill street, or very near the rear wall of the Delmonico 
restaurant building at the iutersection of Beaver and South 
William streets. If this calculation is correct, the site of 
the first Jewish synagogue of North America, and probably 
of the Western Hemisphere, is at Number 8 South William 
street. It may be of interest to note that in a house on this 
site in after years lived the Reverend Louis Rou, whose 
troublous pastorate of the Huguenot church of New York 
forms one of the pathetic incidents of that city's history. It 
should be said also, before leaving this subject, that " John 
Harpending," who hired his house to the Jews for use as a 
synagogue, is the famous John Harpording, shoemaker, 
whose legacy of the " Shoemaker's Pasture " enriched the 
Collegiate Reformed Protestant Dutch Church of the city 
of New York. 

* Liber (Conv.) 31, p. 263. These figures are as given in the deed. 
They are the approximate measurements, as was seen wlien accu- 
rate surveys of the city were made. 

f Greenleaf , New York Churches, p. 120. 



Points in Neiv York Jewish History — Dyer. 63 

The synagogue lot, after the last purchase was made, 
July 3, 1806, was an irregular oblong, 86.4 feet front on the 
present South William street line, and running through to a 
narrower front on the present Beaver street line. The second 
synagogue was built on the site of the " first," at the south- 
western corner of the plot near the Mill street front and the 
Alexander line. It was in the form of an oblong like the 
original synagogue, but running east and west, while the 
synagogue of 1729 ran north and south, with an entrance on 
its western side. Entrance to the new- building was at the 
western end, the door being close to the line of the lot. 
East of the synagogue on the Mill street front, at the present 
No. 18 South William street, was the parsonage. North of the 
synagogue was the woman's building, with a space between 
the two where the ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles were 
held. Bridging this space was a closed passageway affording 
access to the synagogue galleries from the second story of the 
woman's building. Near the woman's building, and in the 
rear of the parsonage, was the house occupied by the sexton. 
Back of this, at No. 42 Beaver street, at the point where the 
old line of Princess street took a deep jog to the south, was 
the home of Moses Seixias. The rest of the synagogue plot 
was an open court or yard through which the people passed 
and repassed to and from the synagogue. The Mill street 
front was closed by a high fence which extended beyond the 
synagogue to the parsonage yard, and the public entrance 
to the lot was through Beaver street, then much narrower 
than at present. The present site of the entrance could be 
found by measuring out into Beaver street, opposite the line 
between numbers 38 and 40, a distance of fifteen feet. If the 
exact spot is sought where the synagogue of 1729 stood, it 
can be found by measuring westerly along the north line of 
South William street from the southwest corner of the Peter 
Goelet building, a distance of fifty feet. The old line of Mill 
street ran out into. South William street here three or four 
feet, so that a stake driven at this point, close to the line of 



64 American Jewish Historical Society. 

the buildings at Nos. 22-24 South William street, would 
stand within the quadrangle formed by the foundations of 
the synagogue and near its southeast corner. 

There seems to have been an impression in the minds of 
certain writers that " Sleyck Strege" and its English name 
" Mill street" owed its origin to a tan -bark mill and a stream 
of fresh water which coursed down the slope of Varlatten- 
berg (at Exchange Place), through the meadows between 
Beaver and Stone streets, and emptied into the tidal waters 
of the Herre Graft in the middle of Broad street. This 
impression has produced some curious statements about the 
use of this water in connection with the Jewish ceremonies 
at the synagogue. The basis of these impressions can be 
traced to some of the earliest works on New York. Moul- 
ton's View of the City of New Orange as it appeared in 
1673, says :* 

" In the rear of the city hall was Slyk Steeg or Mire Lane, 
and a tannery extended from the north corner of the. lane, 
passing from Coenties Slip to Mire Lane, on which a bark- 
mill stood. Hence the present Mill Street." 

Dunlap's History of New York (1839) connects the origin 
of the name with a stream rf 

" The Jews were scarcely tolerated. Their first church or 
synagogue was built in Mill Street, a narrow street so called 
from a stream which fell into the great water in Broad 
Street. They built here in 1730." 

Watson's Olden Time in New York (1846) combines the 
two ideas of a mill and a stream : J 

" A mill-house is taxed in ' Mill Street Lane.' Thus indi- 
cating the fact of a water-course and mill-seat (probably the 
bark-mill of Ten Eycke) at the head of what is now called 
* Mill Street.' Thus verifying what I once heard from the 
Phillips family, that in early times when the Jews first held 

* P. 34. 

fVol. I, p. 484. 

t P. 157. Watson's reference " two houses above " seems to poiiit 
to the site of the Harpording house. 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyer. 55 

their worship there (their synagogue was built there a cen- 
tury ago), they had a living spring, two houses above their 
present lots, in which they were accustomed to perform their 
ablutions and cleanings according to the rites of their 
religion." 

Grant Thorburn, Reminiscences of New York (1846), 
gives this recollection :* 

" I knew an old man who had seen a mill whose wheel 
was turned by a spring near the head of Coenties slip. Mill 
street took its name from this circumstance." 

Such convincing testimony might easily mislead the most 
careful writer, especially if no attempt was made to get at the 
origin of Sleyck Strege and its landmarks by a study of the 
official records in the possession of the city. These, as has 
been shown, tell a different story. Mill street owes its origin 
and its name to a horse-mill which was a grist-mill. The 
buhr-millstones employed in the mill long before its site 
was required for the uses of the synagogue, are still lying 
near the spot where they were cast aside when the grist-mill 
was abandoned. Their ancient origin is well attested, as has 
been shown in another place by the writer.f For more than 
a hundred years, according to tradition, these old stones, 
relics of the ancient Holland grist-mill, were piled up in the 
synagogue yard, where they served the youths of the congre- 
gation and their children and grandchildren for many a 
game of tag. 

But there was no stream at that part of Manhattan Island 
such as is described in the quotations and in the more modern 
writings. If there were a stream there large enough to give 
power to a mill it would have been noted in the deeds of 
conveyance of property in that neighborhood and in the 
surveys of the island. No evidence of this character has 
been found to show that a stream of any kind ever existed 

* P. 212. 

+ First Protestant Church in America. The Outlook, New York, 
April 24, 1894. 



56 American Jewish Historical Society. 

in or near Mill street. None of the early deeds relating to 
Mill street property make mention of a stream as a basis for 
measurement.* Egbert L. Viele's topographical map of 
New York (1874) shows the original water lines, water- 
courses, streams, made lands, marsh lands, meadow lands and 
hills of Manhattan Island. On this map the line of the old 
tidal ditch known to the Dutch as " Herre Graft " may be 
followed along the east side of Broad street across the head 
of Mill street to Princess street. There it bends easterly, 
forming an arm running a third of the way to Hanover 
Square. Around this arm and along the side of the main 
ditch the Viele map shows marsh land extending far up 
Mill street almost to Hanover Square. Beyond this is 
meadow land, and beyond the meadow the gentle slope of 
Varlattenberg. Tidal waves swept up the Herre Graft and 
into the arm. Periodically these waves overspread the 
marsh lands in the neighborhood, coming almost to the spot 
now covered by Delmonico's building. Was there a stream 
of water with head enough to turn a mill flowing across this 
tide-water marsh ? If so, it is given no place on the Viele 
map. 

The " tan-bark " mill mentioned by Moulton and Watson 
was in another part of the city. No mill of any kind, 
except the horse-mill of Gouvert Lookermans, 1667, and the 

* Wishing to learn if there is such mention in the old records of 
conveyances the writer applied to Wm.iS. Pelletreau, a searcher of 
old landmarks and street lines, who has patiently read page by 
page the first SCO libers in the Hall of Records, and received the 
following in reply : 

"In the course of my investigations in regard to the history of 
the old streets of New York I have had occasion to refer to and 
examine carefully all of the old deeds covering all the land and 
lots on both sides of what was originally 'Slyck Steege,' afterward 
Mill street. In none of these is there any allusion to any stream 
of water. I do not believe that any documentary evidence can be 
produced to show the existence of any stream in that vicinity. 

Yours truly, 

Dec. 15, 1894. Wm. S. Pelletreau." 



Points in New York Jewish History — Dyer. 57 

mill-house of Corston Johnston, 1677, which seem to be one 
and the same institution, is mentioned in any of the records 
relating to Mill street. The list of taxable property above 
referred to, bearing date August 27, 1677, furnishes proof of 
the location of the tan-bark mill. This list gives the improved 
and vacant property of the city, arranged under separate 
heads according to the streets on which it is located. If 
there were a bark-mill in Mill street in 1677, it would appear 
with the name of its owner on this list.* No such item is 
there. But in another part of the list, under the head " The 
Herre Graft and ye Bever graft and Markeft," the " bark- 
mill corner " appears.f The books of conveyances in the 
New York Hall of Records show clearly where on Broad 
street was situated this "bark-mill corner" mentioned in 
the tax list of 1677. A deed is recorded! bearing date 
August 14, 1680, three years subsequent to the date of the 
tax list, conveying "a house and lot in the street there called 
the Broad Street, bounded on the north and east by the 

*As the Mill street holdings are especially interesting in connec- 
tion with the site of the synagogue, they are given here verbatim as 
copied from the minute book (page 101). 

Houses. Mill Street Lane. 

1 Henry Vandusbury, 4 s. 

1 John Hendric Van Bommell, 6 

1 Jacob Molyno, 7 

1 Hans Gooderies, 6 

1 Corston Johnston, 4 

ditto mill-house, 4 

Vacant Places. 

John Harpording, 28 foot front, 50 foot long, 4 

Bays Crodwolt, 23 foot front, 100 foot long, 4 

Jacob Molyno, 46 foot front, 100 foot long, 6 

t " Herre Graf t " was Broad street, "Bever Graft" was Beaver 
street between Broadway and Broad street, and "Markeft" 
(Market field) was the open way along the eastern curtain of the fort, 
now called Whitehall. Marketfield St. of a later date, formerly 
Pettycoat lane, where stood the Huguenot Church, is given in this 
tax list as " Field Street." 

+ Liber 12, p. 30. 



58 Amei'ican Jewish Historical Society. 

Shoemaker's Tan or bark mill, south by the Cross street that 
runs up into the Broadway." This same lot, five years 
earlier than the date of the tax list, October 20, 1672, was 
sold to William Lawrence by Hendrick Kip, and is then 
described in the deed of conveyance as " bounded east by 
the shoemaker's bark mill." The Kip lot was part of a plot 
granted by Governor Kieft, July 13, 1643, to Cornelius 
Volkertsen, on the northeast side of the " Common High- 
way " (Broadway), and running northeasterly a distance of 
18 rods "to a marsh." The Volkertsen plot was cut up 
into lots fronting on Broadway and running back to the 
marsh, and sold in April, 1655. One of these lots was used 
as a street known then as Cross Street and now as Exchange 
Place. The Kip lot lies next northwest of Exchange Place. 
As described in the deed, its northeasterly boundary was the 
shoemaker's bark-mill. From this description it is an easy 
matter to locate the bark-mill of 1672. New Street was not 
then opened. Broad Street was not extended so far up into 
the salt marsh. The "marsh " in the rear of the Broadway 
grants of 1643 was a waste tract of low land, partly flooded 
by the high tides that came up the Heere Graft, and 
extending in a wide strip midway between Broadway and 
William street to the foot of the hill south of Wall street. 
This salt marsh and its borders was common ground for 
many years. It was common ground in 1692, when the 
common council granted a part of it as a site for the Dutch 
church. The tan-bark mill and tanyards were located on 
this common land at the head of the marsh. Measuring 
three hundred feet along the north line of Exchange Place 
from the corner of Broadway to the northeastern boundary 
of the Kip lot, the tape will reach to the western line of the 
Broad-street plaza. Beyond this line to the east and to the 
north stood the bark-mill described in the deeds mentioned 
as the Shoemaker's Tan or Bark Mill. This was certainly 
the mill taxed in 1677 as part of the property on the Heere 
Graft. It seems also to be the mill referred to by Dunlap and 



Points in Neuj York Jetvish History — Dyer. 59 

by Watson. Its site was probably on the slope below Wall 
street in the Broad street before the mill's building, a spot 
too far from Sleyck Strege to be connected in any way with 
its change of name to Mill lane.* 

It is possible that this old grist-mill of Gouvert Looker- 
mans which marked the site of the Jews' synagogue in 1667 
and whose relics are still to be seen where they were cast 
aside two centuries ago, is the very horse-mill built under 
the administration of Peter Minuit in 1626. f In the loft of 
this horse-mill, the Reverend Jonas Michaelius organized the 
long-existing congregation of French and Dutch worshippers 
into a church. No record of any other horse-mill in any 
other part of the city has been found. If this was not the 
mill of Peter Minuit's time, what became of it? Did it 
wear out and disappear between the years 1626 and 1667? 
And where are the traces of the mill in the deeds and 
records? Is it not more likely that the mill continued in 
use, and that it was the same mill sold by Gouvert Looker- 
mans in 1667? Is it probable that a second horse-mill, a 
crude and primitive contrivance for grinding grain, would be 
needed in the rich and substantial city of New York ? Cer- 
tainly such a mill would not be constructed to compete with 
wind-mills, and wind-mills were in operation in New Amster- 
dam as early as 1642. 

Briefly stated, the suggestions in this paper are : 

1. The first Jews to settle in New Amsterdam were well- 
to-do Holland merchants, who came authorized to engage in 
trade in the Dutch possessions along the North and South 
rivers. They came before the Jewish refugees from Brazil, 
who are generally supposed to have been the first of the race 
in New Netherland. 

2. The first Jewish congregation may be dated from 1682, 
and not 1706, the earliest authentic date heretofore fixed. 

3. This organization ranks as third (or fourth) in the order 

* See Albany Records, MSS. GG, p. 83. 
t Holland Documents, vol. I, p. 42. 



60 American Jewish Historical Society. 

of priority in the city's religious institutions, the order being 
Dutch and French Calvinists, 1628 ; Evangelical Dutch 
Lutherans, 1657 ; Society of Friends, 1672 or 1696 ; Jews, 
1673 or 1682; Protestant Episcopalian, 1697. 

4. The first synagogue in North America was situated on 
the lot now known as No. 8 South William street in the 
citv of New York. 



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